Global Health Initiative Teams Win First at Harvard
ESSO’s Global Health Initiative Club sent five Exonians to the Harvard Undergraduate Global Health Forum, which focused on climate change and the effect it has on public health, last Saturday. The students were split up into teams of two and three: lower John Beckerle and upper Jennifer Zecena worked together and upper Sofia Yoon, senior Matilde Liboni and upper Kate Fitzpatrick made up the other team. The two teams from Exeter won first and second place out of six teams for their proposals on reducing the negative impact that climate change has on the citizens of Boston.
Doctor Ramon Guinto opened the forum with a speech and presentation on climate change and global health, providing the students with a base for their proposals. Then, each group was allotted four and a half hours to deliberate and prepare a proposal. Yoon appreciated help from the advisors—professors and students at Harvard—who were present during the period to offer input on the planning process for each group. At the end of the preparation time, the teams handed their preliminary proposals to current Harvard professors and students who served as judges.
“No matter what the result was, I am glad I got to work on a solution to a real-world problem with my friends.”
Despite their success, Beckerle and Zecena both initially felt that their proposal was poorly written. “Jen even said that she thought our proposal was the worst one there and that we had just wasted our whole day writing this proposal for nothing,” Beckerle said. This lack of confidence only increased their surprise when the judges announced that they were finalists. “(When) the judges announced our project name, ‘Clean Air Means Better Care,’ Jen and I both just sat there stunned because we couldn't believe we won.”
Yoon’s team found the time constraint imposed upon them to be one of the greatest challenges. “We were given the topic during the conference and we only had five hours to type our proposal, so the three of us—Kate, Matilde, and I—had to quickly bring out all the ideas we had,” she said. Though the three girls worried that their unfinished proposal, which they wrote in the form of a letter to the mayor of Boston, was too raw, Yoon, Fitzpatrick and Liboni made it to the finals as well. Other groups were experiencing the same struggle, so the team had no knowledge of how their proposal compared to those of other groups until the judges announced the finalists.
During the finals, the teams presented their proposals to Guinto, as well as Harvard undergraduates and the other teams participating in the forum. Beckerle and Zecena proposed the installation of new ventilation systems in the Boston public systems to limit exposure to polluted air that would impact physical health. “Currently, 10 percent of elementary school students in Boston have asthma,” Zecena said. “As the quality of the air in the city is decreasing, the number of students with asthma is rising.” In addition to finding a physical solution for the issue, the team included other aspects of their proposal in the presentation, emphasizing the importance of educating community members. “To combat climate change, we would be raising awareness to parents about how climate change could be causing their children serious respiratory problems and encouraged parents to have students take the bus, bike or walk to school,” Beckerle said.
In their presentation, Yoon, Fitzpatrick and Liboni spoke about the benefits that green roofs would have on the city of Boston in combatting the urban heat island effect. They labeled themselves as the “Green Roofs Environmental Activists Team,” or GREAT for short. According to the group, the benefits of green roofs extend far beyond their power to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. “Green roofs provide mental health benefits, increase the availability of produce in urban areas, and provide a means of water collection and filtration,” Fitzpatrick said.
After five minutes of speech preparation leading up to the final presentations, the team felt confident. “During the five minutes that we were given to prepare a presentation, we told ourselves that it would be just like Harkness so there was no need to be nervous,” Yoon said. Fitzpatrick added that standing close together and smiling at each other and the audience allowed the group to calm their nerves and relax during their presentation.
After the final presentations, the judges deliberated and then announced the winners. Beckerle and Zecena won first place, with Yoon, Fitzpatrick and Liboni placing in close second. “That moment in itself was one of the greatest feelings I ever had, especially considering where I thought our group was going to place,” Beckerle said, of hearing their proposal announced in first place.
In true Exonian fashion, those in second place maintained good sportsmanship, accepting Starbucks gift cards as a prize and congratulating Beckerle and Zecena.
The five participants hope to apply their proposals on a smaller scale in the Exeter community. “We are hoping to work with the PEA members of the winning team to bring our ideas and perspectives together,” Fitzpatrick said. Combining two brilliant proposals and the skills they learned at the forum, the five members of the Global Health Initiative Club look forward to improving the environment here on campus. “I hope we get to implement our proposals to the Exeter community,” Yoon said. “No matter what the result was, I am glad I got to work on a solution to a real-world problem with my friends.”